Page 9 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Preparing for the next wave
Are you protected
by Queensland’s new
biosecurity laws?
FOR producers, there is always plenty to think about in the short term when running successful businesses.
For example, attending to everyday details such as feed quality and cost, the daily care of each pig, training and keeping good staff as well as agreeing commercial terms with buyers.
It’s a similar situation at Australian Pork Limited.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in what is happening today – changing min- isters, new regulations, a different approach to R&D and the best market- ing mix for the particular balance of supply and de- mand that seems likely to occur in coming months.
Also, the outbreaks of ASF around the world and the production survey responses suggesting that
Marketing Matters
by PETER HAYDON General Manager Marketing
production will moder- ate in the coming months from around 5.4 million pigs per year to about 5.1 million offer both threat and opportunity.
But every now and then – and 2019-20 will be one of those years – we need to lift our heads, focus on the horizon and work out where we want to be in in 2025 or 2030.
The coming year is a strategic planning year.
If we take a long-term view, what has occurred in the past five to 10 years that we should take note of?
Well, the industry rev- enue graph looks like Fig- ure 1.
In the 2010-2016 period the industry saw revenue growth that appears not to have been caused by external factors (like the opening of Singapore in 2000).
That growth appears to have been driven by ‘positive for pork’ chang- es in population growth, growth in domestic de- mand and other factors we do not have data to explain.
Marketing activity tends to fit into a number of buckets.
Changes in relative price and distribution tend to affect short-term volume and revenue, whereas consumer pro- motion and product qual- ity tend to have more impact on long-term vol- ume and revenue.
Looking at domestic demand, we know indus- try media activity (pro- motion) caused about 18 percent of the growth and while we don’t have evidence, I believe the in- dustry supply chains have improved significantly in new added-value products (marinated, convenient and part-cooked products) and that has also fuelled growth.
However, demand grew fast – enough to cause high prices – but in 2017- 18 we found we could not grow it fast enough to keep up with supply growth caused by im- proved profitability.
That not only caused a price crash, but it also caused raw product qual- ity to suffer.
Coming out of the 2017- 18 price crash, not only do we need to trial increas- ing our industry’s sources of demand in ham, bacon and international markets, we also need to increase
our product quality. Fortunately, Dr Heather
Channon has completed eating characteristics re- search that suggests by changing five factors we can move our overall eat- ing score for Australian pork from a base of 52 percent to 65 percent.
At the same time, Kath- leen Pindsle has identified the consumer interactions with pork that seem to matter most (the eating experience and in-store selection point).
As a result, we are em- barking on a project aim- ing to improve consum- ers’ eating experience.
This requires collabora- tion and moving forwards together with producers, abattoirs, boning rooms and retailers.
While we have recruited an ex-Woolworths and MLA specialist to help us with this, there are things that producers can do to help.
One of the key ‘good eating characteristics’ is the level of acidity or al- kalinity of the meat in the abattoir.
This is largely affected by treatment on-farm, in- transit and at the abattoir.
So, while producers fo- cus on recovery of their businesses and rebuilding their resources after the financial nightmare of the past two and a half years, part of APL’s strategy will be aimed at building an- other price growth curve that is less of a peak but nevertheless an attractive and sustainable revenue story.
QUEENSLAND producers are being urged to review their biosecurity manage- ment plans and sig- nage to ensure new biosecurity laws can be enforced against unauthorised entry to their properties.
Queensland’s bio- security laws have been changed to allow police and biosecurity officers to issue imme- diate fines to those who do not comply with a prope rty’s biosecurity management plan and who put on-farm bio- security at risk.
To support enforce- ment of the new bio- security law, farmers, livestock producers and others who keep animals are encour- aged to:
• Ensure they are reg- istered as a biosecurity entity with Biosecurity Queensland. Anyone with a Property Iden- tification Code on July 1, 2016 was automati- cally registered as a biosecurity entity. Call 13 25 23 to check your status.
• Have an up-to-date biosecurity manage- ment plan in place. You may need to update your current plan to en-
sure it aligns with the new biosecurity laws. A checklist of infor- mation you must have in your plan is avail- able on the Queensland Department of Agri- culture and Fisheries website.
• Have appropriate clear signage at the en- try points to their prop- erty. You can down- load an approved sign from the DAF website (daf.qld.gov.au/bios- ecurityplan).
The new biosecurity laws and fines are in addition to existing tres- pass laws and penalties, which include fines and possible jail time.
The change was fast- tracked after an esca- lation in unauthorised entry to properties by animal and vegan ac- tivists.
This is an interim measure – more chang- es to protect the live- stock production in- dustry are likely.
Find out more in- formation about the new biosecurity laws and what you can do at your place (daf.qld. gov.au/business-prior ities/biosecurity/pol icy-legislation-regula tion/biosecurity-plan ning).
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Australian Pork Newspaper, June 2019 – Page 9
Figure 1